National Flash Fiction Day

It's National Flash Fiction Day today, which I'm very excited about. Flash fiction is a great way to accept and engage with this Age of short attention spans and on-screen reading. I can't stand to sit at a screen and read anything that's going take longer than drinking a cup of tea (and I'm a fast tea drinker). What I especially like about flash fiction is that there are no rules, nothing matters and if your reader didn't like or understand the story, that's no great loss - it only took them a few minutes to read. This means writers can be really experimental and try new things without fearing failure.

My academic background is in fine art, particularly photographic and contextual theory. I love to read and write fiction that is less about telling a story, and more of an outcome of artistic research - so rather than my project outcome being a fine art photograph - it's a short fiction of less than 1000 words. The fiction can then be read in the same way as you'd read a photograph or fine art piece - certain things might resonate with the reader, especially readers engaged in particular contextual discourses. And I can do that with flash fiction, I can afford to limit my market to only a few people who are going to get it.

I really like the work of Etgar Keret, who tends to write flash fiction. Check his stuff out if you're a fan of the short form. You can buy his collections through Amazon or (very) good book shops.

There are so many options with flash fiction, it can be whatever you want it to be. I like to play with language and be atmospheric and poetic with some of my flash fictions. I wrote a short atmospheric piece called Trapped in Nomansland, which has been published in this anthology in association with National Flash Fiction Day, specifically the South West region of contributing writers: Kissing Frankenstein and Other Stories
So please check it out, buy a copy, read it, lend it to your friends.

Get involved in NFFD here: http://nationalflashfictionday.blogspot.co.uk/

Pistachio Cake

I made this cake the other day. It's a pistachio and almond cake with an orangey zing. The recipe is mostly from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries, minus a few things I didn't like the sound of (or couldn't afford. This is a pricey cake to make!) It's got an incredible flavour, it's heavy and moist and will last a good few days without a decline in quality - in fact I think it improves with age.

Butter - 250g
caster sugar - 250g
eggs x3
pistachio nuts - 120g
ground almonds - 100g
an orange
plain flour - 60g

Preheat the oven to 160C. Line a 22cm cake tin. Cream the butter and sugar in a mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating between each addition. Grind 100g of the pistachios into a fine powder (use a food processor), and then add them to the mix along with the ground almonds. Grate and squeeze the orange, stirring it in (Nigel Slater puts rosewater in at this point too. I couldn't afford rosewater, so left it out). Fold in the flour with a metal spoon (or in my case, whiz old Ken Wood on a low setting).
Scoop the mixture into the tin, and bake for just shy of an hour, covering the top with foil about 10 mins before the end of cooking. It's done when a skewer comes out pretty much clean. Leave it in the tin to cool.

Nigel Slater makes a lemon icing to put on top. Mr Kite dislikes lemon in puddings, and I don't really like icing. The cake is so moist it doesn't need it. Instead I crushed up the remaining 20g of pistachio nuts and sprinkled them on the top. I put some primrose flowers on top for an elegant flourish. Depending on the season you could use whatever edible flower is in season at the time.

I recommend checking out the original recipe, especially if you want the rosewater touch and the icing. Nigel Slater includes a recipe for an amazing sounding sorbet that goes nicely with the cake.

Delicious!

Dorset Writers Network and Bath Literary Festival

Jennifer Oliver and I gave a talk about Online Publishing for the Dorset Writer’s Network over the weekend, which seemed to go down well. There was a literary agent there – it was good to have the agent process demystified. What I think is most exciting about the roles of agents is the working relationship, the fact that the agent wants to bring the best out of the writer and offer a platform of support. I could really use that.

Steve Elsworth gave a talk on digital publishing. He thinks that within 10-20 years printed books will be obsolete/ have the same status as LP records have currently. I really hope that this won’t be so, books have a very long history and I hope that they are as ingrained in our society as other ancient media. Maybe it will be more like painting – a medium that many thought would be replaced by photography.

Some of us Storyslingers (my writing group) went to Bath on Tuesday for a Speculative Fiction workshop lead by Bath Spa University students. It was a really enjoyable evening, especially as I want to study on the MA programme at Bath Spa, so their insight was very helpful. One issue cropped up, and that’s that I’m the sort of writer who loves the first draft stage but struggles to edit – resulting in having about six novels at first draft stage but nothing fully completed or ready to send anywhere.

Many of the Bath Spa students have the opposite problem – they prefer to edit as they go, which means that they don’t get to write THE END for a long time, and when they get there it’s at the same stage as I would be after a few edits and re-writes.

A key piece of advice I was given was to finish up one novel in its entirety, to a level that’s ready to send out, and don’t start anything new until it’s done.

I’ve been struggling with editing my Arthurian novel over the past few days. My main problem is lack of confidence. I’m not the same person I was when I first wrote this story and I feel I could do a better job, or at least I want to be capable of doing a better job. I’m not quite convinced that I’m a good enough writer yet. This makes editing a pretty depressing task.

I wonder if anyone else has this problem?  From what the Bath Spa students said; it’s fairly common and normal to feel like your work isn’t matching up to your expectations. Writers are naturally self-deprecating.

I have one question to any writers out there: Do you listen to music while you write and/ or edit? Does it help? I find that listening to music helps calm me down, gets me past my self-deprecation so I can actually write or edit. But a level of focus is then lost. My writing seems better when I’m editing to music than when I’m editing it in silence – so I cut less out when listening to music. I’m not sure if it’s better to listen to music or face up to my words in all their silent force. Any thoughts? 

Jennifer K Oliver

I’ve started to write a brand new novel (or novella, it might end up being pretty short). This means I’m distracted, disconnected and I forgot that I had a blog for a while.

Today I’m going to write about Jennifer K Oliver, who had her short story Death Car Alley published on Jersey Devil Press (issue 27) earlier this month. It’s a really awesome story - Jennifer’s style is so fluid and fresh.

She was interviewed about a week ago by Paperblanks, who make and publish beautiful notebooks. She talks about her writing philosophies, creative practice, and the projects she’s working on – check it out.

Jennifer and I will be in Dorchester next Saturday giving a little talk about online publishing as part of the Dorset Writers Network Publishing Day. Let me know if you want to come along, it’s going to be a really informative day, with talks about all aspects of publishing – from various writers and a literary agent. 

Follow Jennifer K Oliver on twitter and check out her blog.

Thank You Notes

If you haven’t already written your Christmas thank you notes, don’t worry; it’s not too late. Here are some tips for writing the perfect thank you note. If you’ve already penned your Christmas thank yous, you can apply these tips to birthdays, anniversaries, spontaneous-non-corporate-initiated gifts, etc.

* I usually start in one of two ways:

1) by saying how great it was to see the giver on Christmas/ my birthday/ etc and mention something that you did together: maybe you played a few board games or went for a walk. If you shared a particular moment/ funny story then refer to that.

2) If the gift was posted then I say that I hope they had a good Christmas/ have been keeping well. I then briefly say that I had a good Christmas, it was quiet/ hectic/ a lot fun or I say that I’ve been keeping well, and give any significant news.

You can skip this section if the giver is someone you see on a very regular/ daily basis or if it doesn't feel appropriate. 

*Next comes the thank yous. I normally start this paragraph with a simple thank you very much for the… If you get stuck as to what more to say, then here’s what I do:

* If you got money or a handmade gift, skip to the next tips.

Is the gift particularly thoughtful and suited to you? If so, say so. Talk about how useful/ brilliant/ fun the gift is. If you got a book, say how it looks really good, or that you love this author, that you can’t wait to read it. The same can be applied to films, games or music (you love this genre, you can’t wait to watch/ play/ listen). If you like the gift so much that you already started to read/ watch or play it, then say so and how good it is.

If you got clothes, say how good the fit is, how the style is just so you, how you’ve been wearing it non stop.

Whatever you got, praise it, let the giver know how well suited it is to you and how you’ve been using (or will use) the gift.

If your gift wasn’t all that great or you really can’t think of anything to say about it, then keep it simple, fill the note up with news and extend the first section. Let the thank you be a simple “thank you for the….!”

* Hand-made gifts should be especially appreciated because the giver has spent time and thought on your gift, as well as money. Compliment the item, pointing out things about it you like in particular. Even if you don’t like the gift, it’s polite to find something about it that you can compliment. It’s a good idea to briefly go into your experiences with the gift. Eg: I got a handmade apron this Christmas (which I definitely did like!) and after saying how much I liked the design and fabric, I said that I’ve been wearing it each time I cook, trying to avoid splashing it too much because it’s so lovely.

* For those of you who got money or a gift voucher: let the giver know how you intend to spend it (or what kind of book/ music/ John Lewis product/ gardening equipment you’ll get). If you haven’t thought about what you’ll spend the money on, now is the time to give it a good think. Before I got into the habit of writing detailed thank you notes, I’d bank my cheque, the money would be assimilated into my current account and I’d forget about it. So take a few minutes to think of something you really want. Then when you get that item it’s that bit more special and the giver can feel their money wasn’t wasted.

You can always put the money towards a more expensive item if you can’t think of something within the value of the gift.  

If you’ve left it a while since receiving the gift and have since spent the money, then you can let the giver know what you bought and how great it is.

* Finish the note off with something like have a good new year or I hope to see you soon. If you’ve got a date set when you’ll see them next, mention it. If the giver is someone you see on a daily or very regular basis, skip this and just repeat a quick very many thanks!

And you’re done! Phew! It’s worth putting some effort into; your loved ones have spent time and money on you, let them know how amazing they are.

This year I bought my thank you notes from Meticulous Ink, a fine stationary company in Bath. I went for a lovely chicken design, letterpressed on 410gsm cotton card. The envelopes are lined with tissue paper for that added feeling of quality. You want the recipient of your note to feel like the amazing special person they are, so it’s only right that you splash out and get the best quality stationary for them.

You can buy Meticulous Ink note cards via their etsy store, or give them a tinkle on the telephone 01225 333004.

Alternatively, make your own cards! 

(Almost) All the Books I Read in 2011

Okay, so I stole this post idea from Fucking Big Thoughts, a blog that is a lot better than this one, and also Andrew Worthington is a bigger reader than I am because he has about 70 books on his list and I have 38. He is also a better writer*, and if I put two and two together I might learn something about how to become a better writer.

A lot of my books are children’s books, but then I tend to write YA fiction, so there. 

I always grade the books I’m reviewing in the same way that my work was marked when I was at Uni – out of 100, but really out of 80. Any book that gets a 70 or more gets a first; that means it’s really good. It is actually impossible to get 100. Should a book ever get 100, everyone would have to stop writing because heavenly perfection would have been reached and the apocalypse would be upon us. Maybe I’ll read something worth 100 in the latter part of this year, maybe that’s what the end of the Mayan calendar is all about.

* Judged purely on the quantity of stories published and the quality of the publications in which the work appears.

Escape – Oldham                                                             42

Reaver’s Ransom – Diamand                                         65

Just In Case – Rosoff                                                       56

How I Live Now – Rosoff                                                  75

Breathing Under Water – Green                                     50

The Green Book – Patton Walsh                                    51

State of the Art – Banks                                                   68

The Drowned World – JG Ballard                                   71

Farewell my Lovely – Chandler                                       80

What I Was – Rosoff                                                         72

Bride’s Farewell – Rosoff                                                65

Roundabout – Lassiter                                                    41

A Song For Nero – Holt                                                   49

The Master and Margarita – Bulgakov                          85

The Curious Incident of...  – Hadon                                46

Will Grayson, Will Grayson – Green & Levithan           70

Star – Singleton                                                               63

Skaz, Skinny B and Me – Singleton                              50

A Bear Called Paddington – Bond                                69

Expedition to Earth – Clarke                                          69

Angel Kiss – Cassidy                                                      41

A visit from the Goon Squad – Egan                             76

Here Lies Arthur – Reeve                                               70

Anybody Out There – Keyes                                          15

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace... – Mishima              83

Leaving the World – Kennedy                                       08

The Temple of the Golden Pavi... – Mishima               90

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detetecti...- Adams                    45

Eleven Kinds of Loneliness – Yates                             85

While Mortals Sleep – Vonnegut                                  65

The Graveyard Book – Gaiman                                    70

The High Window – Chandler                                       82

Revolutionary Road – Yates                                          85                          

Exodus – Bertagna                                                         66

Aurora – Bertagna                                                          61

Zenith – Bertagna                                                           57

Wild Abandon – Dunthorne                                           58

The Age of Arthur; A history... – Morris                        55

Well, this is a list of what I remember reading.

Plus I read a few more Dark Ages history books, but I can’t remember the titles. I read a lot of shorts as well, and re-read stuff like Instruction Manual For Swallowing (Marek. 83).

In conclusion, the best book I read in 2011 was The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Mishima rated a massive 90/100 - probably the most I've ever awarded a book before. 

The worst book I read in 2011 was Leaving the World by Douglas Kennedy who rated 8/100. I was forced to read this when I joined a local book group. It was a horrible experience. Ordinarily I would've stopped reading it before reaching chapter 2. 

Short Stories by Etgar Keret and Robert Shearman

I got books for Christmas, mostly things that Adam Marek recommended during the reading he gave in Bridport in November. So far I’ve read Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical by Robert Shearman, Etgar Keret’s The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God, I’m nearly finished The Girl on the Fridge by the same author, and I’ve read Apples by Richard Milward (this one wasn’t a Marek recommendation). What lead me to put Milward on my list was seeing this video of him doing a reading of his latest book. I liked that he transformed his head into a block of flats before doing the reading.

Both Shearman and Keret are amazing writers. I think Shearman is the better of the two; his stories are subtle and pack a lot more punch because I know there’s a lot going on in them.

Many of Keret’s stories are amazing. I think the stories in The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God are generally stronger than those in The Girl on the Fridge. I love Good Intentions, wherein a pro-assassin is hired to kill off the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, “the only good man I’d ever known”, a man who saved the assassin from orphanage beatings in his youth. He can’t do it, despite his 100% success rate in previous jobs. The ending is particularly strong, but I won’t go into it here. Keret’s endings tend to be very open. I think his stories demonstrate how it’s fine to leave everything hanging and unsaid, stories don’t always need a neat bow to round everything off.  

What I really, really like about Keret’s style is that his writing is so minimalist and bare, yet so vivid. The last story in The Bus Driver.. is Kneller’s Happy Campers. This was adapted into a film called Wristcutters, a Love Story. (See trailer below) The story is by far the longest in the book and is divided into twenty-six chapters, each about 300-600 words (his usual story length). The entire thing is forty pages. Any other writer would need five times that to tell this story – it’s enough to fill a feature length film. I think Keret is what I’d call a Conceptual Writer, by which I mean his stories are not really driven by character, plot or beautiful language, they are driven by an idea. The beauty of his prose is in its concise nature. Less is more, and there certainly is less in Keret’s work.

Keret manages to make stories out of anything and everything. Sometimes I’m not sure he succeeds. Perhaps I’ve just missed the point, but I’ve tried hard to delve deeper into some of the weaker ones, and still haven’t managed to figure it out. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy his stories, I like them for being little vignettes. I think what I’m trying to say is that I feel I could write a (weaker) Keret story without breaking into too much sweat, but Shearman is totally beyond me.

Shearman’s work is so multi-faceted. The collection I read were all love stories, yet not a single one could be described as clichéd or soppy. Most of them left me with a raw sadness (in a good way). They are simultaneously uplifting and crushing. In the story Be of Good Cheer, Gillian is allergic to other people’s happiness. “I’d take her to the cinema, making sure that the film was suitably depressing first. But it wasn’t enough to see films about depressing subjects, about heroin addicts or holocaust victims. Good films, no matter how dour, were still curiously uplifting, sent a ripple of unity around the audience that quite made Gillian gnash her teeth in distress.” I think some of Shearman’s stories are like that; though none of them could be described as dour, they’re all too light-hearted in their tone for that.

As for Milward’s Apples, it doesn’t really belong in this discussion because it’s from a different genre. Apples is well written, but I couldn’t connect to the characters, they were all too far from me and my life. I might talk about this in greater depth sometime soon because it did interest me in regards to teen fiction and reluctant readers. More on that later.

More on these authors:

Sample Keret’s work here: http://electricliterature.com/blog/2011/12/21/happy-holidays-from-electric-literature-and-etgar-keret/

and here with a story I read a while ago, before I knew who Keret was:http://www.guernicamag.com/fiction/1479/second_chance/

Shearman is best known for writing the Doctor Who episode that re-introduced the Daleks. Here’s a clip from that episode: